


Past, Present, & Future

by KylaraIngress



Category: Quantum Leap
Genre: Challenge Response, Future Tense, M/M, POV First Person, Past Tense, Present Tense, mid-leap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-13
Updated: 2015-02-13
Packaged: 2018-03-12 03:58:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3342806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KylaraIngress/pseuds/KylaraIngress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Al thinks about Sam in all times.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Past, Present, & Future

**Author's Note:**

> Written in the early 2000s, and posted as part of Throwback Thursdays. An answer to a personal 'challenge' due to a conversation topic of tenses on the Slash Writers Yahoogroup, wherein I wrote a section in each tense.

**Past:**

You had promised to always remember me, to always love me. And my heart broke when you gazed upon me with those confused eyes, asking in so many words who the hell I was.

Our life was a whole different timeline after that leap into Donna's college professor. Our love was just an alternate universe, left to the dreams and visions of yesteryear.

Did you not really love me after all, Sam? I couldn't help but wonder, once your wife popped up, whether those vows that we had now never taken, those vows that – while not legal – meant more to me than any other vows I had made in my miserable life, meant anything in the current timeline.

The funniest thing, though, was what I got in return. You may have found 'your one true love', but I got four extra ex-wives out of the bargain. Thanks a bunch, kid. (And I have to stifle a laugh every time you looked at me oddly when I get my wives confused. Hell, considering I don't remember MARRYING all but one of them, I'm surprised I can tell 'em apart as much as I do!) That's what the lack of Sam Beckett as a lover did to my life, kid – I ended up screwin' and marryin' every woman I could to try and keep the news away from you that it was YOU I secretly desired. (And as I think over the 'new' timeline, I have to give another ironic laugh as I remember how surprised you looked once I announced my own engagement, shortly after you married Donna.)

I think I had hated you for a brief moment, there, when I realized what you had done. And I hated myself more, for giving you the information I did. But I could never say no to you – in any timeline. And I could never hate you, either, and so the hate boiled into a slow resignation of the facts, and as the timeline changed – and changed again – it slowly turned into an odd form of hope as it dawned on me that Donna might just as well pop right back out of the timeline one of these days. I just prayed, desperately and not without a dose of fear, that I wouldn't some day wake up in a different house and a different life, nowhere near New Mexico or any contact with you.

**Present:**

I look at you now, memories of the past four years flooding into my system. You are asleep now, a moment of quiet peace on a hectic leap (like any of them AREN'T hectic?) and your face is curled into that look I used to see back before this crazy jaunt through time – back before Donna.

Four years now, and you still show no sign of remembering what I really meant to you. Four years, and Donna is still as solid and as real as I am. I try dropping hints (nothing as obvious as I did when you had asked for information on Donna's father), even at one point telling you I was in love with you.

Your chest is rising and falling, your breath slow and serene as you dream. I don't watch you very often when you sleep – part of me is afraid you'll pick up on what I'm doing, and I have yet to come up with a plausible excuse that you'll actually believe. I don't think you're quite ready for the truth, Sam. As tolerant as you seem to be on these leaps, I remember clearly your repulsion of my interests when you were 'Samantha'. Yet I can't help watching you. This time, when you're asleep, is the only time I can imagine that you are still my one true love. That some day, you will come home to me and once again sleep in my arms – telling me you love me.

**Future:**

I have this dream, it's both a daydream and a real dream: you finally leap home. Donna will disappear into the mists of alternate universes, and it will be just you and me – just like it was. We'll embrace in the Waiting Room, finally touching after all these years of not being able to. When we finally pull away, tears on both of our faces, you'll look at me and without saying a word, I'll know that you remember us.

You will ask for forgiveness in a kiss, a sweet and beautiful lip lock that will put the fantasy kisses I've shared with you to shame. And I'll sigh, realizing it wasn't your fault you forgot our love – not when you couldn't even remember your own last name.

But this will be a different time line – closer to the original time line – and the others at the Project will just look at us with awed tolerance: shocked that we've both remained this calm when they know our love will never be bound.

I'll take you in my arms, walk you to our office, and proceed to give you a proper 'Welcome Home' – putting us both into orbit. You will scream out my name, not hers, and I'll have you like I used to – all to myself.

We'll both be naked in less time than it takes to ask Ziggy the odds, and you'll look at me with that look of desire I've seen on your face many times now, that look you've given Donna, and Nicole, and Tamlyn. And you'll promise to never forget me again, to always love me – and my heart will break anew as I once again throw caution to the wind and give you my heart, my love, my soul.

From yesterday, to today, to tomorrow. My heart had, has, and will always reach out to you.

 


End file.
